{"id":42,"date":"2005-07-24T23:45:55","date_gmt":"2005-07-25T07:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregbueno.com\/wp\/meisakuki\/2005\/07\/24\/we_need_a_question_to_the_answer\/"},"modified":"2005-07-24T23:45:55","modified_gmt":"2005-07-25T07:45:55","slug":"we_need_a_question_to_the_answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/2005\/07\/24\/we_need_a_question_to_the_answer\/","title":{"rendered":"We need a question to the answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent this past weekend piecing together one of my old songs called “Faith in Religion”, thinking I may include it as part of Imprint<\/i>.
\nI decided against it.
\nIt’s a bizarre tune, very precociously written back in the late ’80s when I lusted after Sting — his music and his body. I’ll post a mix of the new version on the Eponymous 4<\/a> web site later, but for a work by a beginning songwriter, it sure has ambition.
\nIt starts off very ominously, then half way through, it breaks into a dance beat till a classical chorale interrupts it, then it goes back to being ominous. I changed the end in my new mix and made the dance beat a bit funkier. But it’s still an incredibly strange tune.
\nAnd it doesn’t fit the tone of Imprint<\/i>.
\nSo I’m filing it back in the catch-all A Ghost in My Shadow<\/i> project, where it originated.
\nIt’s strange — the song has this grand ambition, but every time I try to approximate what I want from the song in my demos, I’m disappointed.
\nThe very first time I recorded the song, I wasn’t technically schooled enough to get the feel I wanted. It didn’t help the technology I was working with was sorely limited.
\nAnd this past weekend, I had to make substitutions for crucial parts in the song. Since I’m not a guitar player with an e-bow, I couldn’t get the ominous sound I really wanted. I also wanted power chords sustained for long stretches of time, but I’m not properly equipped to handle that either.
\nBut most importantly, I don’t have the classical chorus to deliver the break toward the end of the song. I think I could really get a kick out of this song if I could hear an actual four-part chorus disrupt it.
\nMaybe down the line, I can blow the money to make this song a reality.
\nBut right now, I’m not sure what I feel for this song. The lyrics are terribly dated, written in the language of a high school student, but after all these years, I can’t think of the music without thinking “Faith in Religion”. So the song is pretty much locked thematically if I were to rewrite the lyrics.
\nBut that’s not the issue — I’m questioning whether I actually like<\/i> this song.
\nI can admire the grandiosity of it, and the bravery to throw in all the weird stuff in it. And I think on some level it works. But I’m reaching a style of writing where I’m trying to grab a lot more material from a lot less source.
\nIf I can write an interesting song using only two chords, I feel like I’ve done something really impressive. I really like “Imprint”, the song, because the melody evolves over the same four chords.
\nThat’s why I couldn’t include “Faith in Religion” with Imprint<\/i> — it’s not simple enough.<\/p>\n

\nSpeaking of simplicity, I finished the music for a new song this weekend as well. It repeats the same four chords and requires only voice, piano and bass. No drums. I even removed a string part I put in at the start.
\nI won’t post it till I get the lyrics done.
\nIt’s a bit of a filler, but a demonstration of that new style I mentioned a few paragraphs ago — getting a lot of mileage from a small amount of fuel.
\nMaybe I’m becoming a minimalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I can write an interesting song using only two chords, I feel like I’ve done something really impressive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Bkir-G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}